For the first time in its 11-year history, Twitter will lift the 140-character limit for tweets — at least for some people.

The company announced Tuesday that it would begin testing a new limit of 280 characters for all languages except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. The change will only be seen by a small percentage of Twitter users at first before it's potentially made available broadly.

The move will give Twitter users more freedom to express themselves, easing one of the most difficult aspects of using a service that has struggled to grow its audience in recent years.

For the first time in its 11-year history, Twitter will lift the 140-character limit for tweets — at least for some people.

The company announced Tuesday that it would begin testing a new limit of 280 characters for all languages except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. The change will only be seen by a small percentage of Twitter users at first before it's potentially made available broadly.

The move will give Twitter users more freedom to express themselves, easing one of the most difficult aspects of using a service that has struggled to grow its audience in recent years.

Facebook has acquired a German company called Fayteq that builds software add-ons for video editing that can remove and add whole objects from captured video using computer vision. The acquisition was first reported by a German startup publication (via Variety) and confirmed to TechCrunch, and could be useful as Facebook pursues additional video filter creation technology, both for its live streaming efforts, and for platforms like Instagram Stories.

Of course, being able to add objects to live video and remove them or cover them over on the fly is also something that can be put to interesting use in the emerging field of augmented reality. Facebook launched an AR platform for its built-in camera feature in April at this year’s F8, with the aim of encouraging developers to build AR experiences for use in Facebook on smartphones, which Mark Zuckerberg has said will be “the first augmented reality platform that becomes mainstream.”

Facebook has acquired a German company called Fayteq that builds software add-ons for video editing that can remove and add whole objects from captured video using computer vision. The acquisition was first reported by a German startup publication (via Variety) and confirmed to TechCrunch, and could be useful as Facebook pursues additional video filter creation technology, both for its live streaming efforts, and for platforms like Instagram Stories.

Of course, being able to add objects to live video and remove them or cover them over on the fly is also something that can be put to interesting use in the emerging field of augmented reality. Facebook launched an AR platform for its built-in camera feature in April at this year’s F8, with the aim of encouraging developers to build AR experiences for use in Facebook on smartphones, which Mark Zuckerberg has said will be “the first augmented reality platform that becomes mainstream.”

Twitter’s been combatting harassment for years. The latest effort: quelling its horde of anonymous, hostile egg accounts. But for many users, Twitter’s abuse problem has long since undermined its value as a platform for creative communication. That’s what makes Mastodon—a free, open-source, and increasingly popular six-month-old Twitter alternative—so intriguing.

Mastodon has created a diverse yet welcoming online environment by doing exactly what Twitter won’t: letting its community make the rules. The platform consists of various user-created networks, called instances, each of which determines its own laws. One instance could ban sexist jokes and Nazi logos, while another might practice radically free speech. (In this way, Mastodon is not unlike a network of discretely moderated message boards crossed with a Tweetdeck-like interface.) Users choose for themselves which instance they want to join and select from a host of privacy and anti-harassment settings.

Oh, and the character limit is 500, not 140. In essence, Mastodon is an experiment in whether individually moderated communities can make a social network like Twitter more civil.

Twitter’s been combatting harassment for years. The latest effort: quelling its horde of anonymous, hostile egg accounts. But for many users, Twitter’s abuse problem has long since undermined its value as a platform for creative communication. That’s what makes Mastodon—a free, open-source, and increasingly popular six-month-old Twitter alternative—so intriguing.

Mastodon has created a diverse yet welcoming online environment by doing exactly what Twitter won’t: letting its community make the rules. The platform consists of various user-created networks, called instances, each of which determines its own laws. One instance could ban sexist jokes and Nazi logos, while another might practice radically free speech. (In this way, Mastodon is not unlike a network of discretely moderated message boards crossed with a Tweetdeck-like interface.) Users choose for themselves which instance they want to join and select from a host of privacy and anti-harassment settings.

Oh, and the character limit is 500, not 140. In essence, Mastodon is an experiment in whether individually moderated communities can make a social network like Twitter more civil.

Remember how we told you we were working on ways to let you to express more with 140 characters? Since then, we’ve introduced twoupdates, and today we’re rolling out another. Now, when you reply to someone or a group, those @usernames won’t count toward your Tweet’s 140 characters.

With this change, we’ve simplified conversations in a few ways:

Who you are replying to will appear above the Tweet text rather than within the Tweet text itself, so you have more characters to have conversations.

You can tap on “Replying to…” to easily see and control who’s part of your conversation.

When reading a conversation, you’ll actually see what people are saying, rather than seeing lots of @usernames at the start of a Tweet.

It’s now easier to follow a conversation, so you can focus on what a discussion is about, and who is having it. Also, with all 140 characters for your replies, you have more room to participate in group conversations.

Remember how we told you we were working on ways to let you to express more with 140 characters? Since then, we’ve introduced twoupdates, and today we’re rolling out another. Now, when you reply to someone or a group, those @usernames won’t count toward your Tweet’s 140 characters.

With this change, we’ve simplified conversations in a few ways:

Who you are replying to will appear above the Tweet text rather than within the Tweet text itself, so you have more characters to have conversations.

You can tap on “Replying to…” to easily see and control who’s part of your conversation.

When reading a conversation, you’ll actually see what people are saying, rather than seeing lots of @usernames at the start of a Tweet.

It’s now easier to follow a conversation, so you can focus on what a discussion is about, and who is having it. Also, with all 140 characters for your replies, you have more room to participate in group conversations.

Twitter has a new tactic for curbing abuse and harassment: a time-out.

The company has started temporarily restricting the access of accounts it determines to be abusive, a Twitter spokesperson told Business Insider. Affected accounts will only have their tweets seen by their followers until the ban is lifted.

The spokesperson said that Twitter started temporarily limiting accounts last week, and Heat Street was the first to notice the activity on Wednesday.

Several users who are temporarily restricted by Twitter have tweeted screenshots of messages they've received saying that they had violated the company's content rules. The messages said their accounts were restricted for 12 hours, but a Twitter spokesperson said the restriction's duration could be longer or shorter depending on the offender's behavior.

Twitter has a new tactic for curbing abuse and harassment: a time-out.

The company has started temporarily restricting the access of accounts it determines to be abusive, a Twitter spokesperson told Business Insider. Affected accounts will only have their tweets seen by their followers until the ban is lifted.

The spokesperson said that Twitter started temporarily limiting accounts last week, and Heat Street was the first to notice the activity on Wednesday.

Several users who are temporarily restricted by Twitter have tweeted screenshots of messages they've received saying that they had violated the company's content rules. The messages said their accounts were restricted for 12 hours, but a Twitter spokesperson said the restriction's duration could be longer or shorter depending on the offender's behavior.

Trying to cram your thoughts into a Tweet – we’ve all been there, and it’s a pain.

Interestingly, this isn't a problem everywhere people Tweet. For example, when I (Aliza) Tweet in English, I quickly run into the 140 character limit and have to edit my Tweet down so it fits. Sometimes, I have to remove a word that conveys an important meaning or emotion, or I don’t send my Tweet at all. But when Iku Tweets in Japanese, he doesn’t have the same problem.

He finishes sharing his thought and still has room to spare. This is because in languages like Japanese, Korean, and Chinese you can convey about double the amount of information in one character as you can in many other languages, like English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French.

We want every person around the world to easily express themselves on Twitter, so we're doing something new: we're going to try out a longer limit, 280 characters, in languages impacted by cramming (which is all except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean).

Trying to cram your thoughts into a Tweet – we’ve all been there, and it’s a pain.

Interestingly, this isn't a problem everywhere people Tweet. For example, when I (Aliza) Tweet in English, I quickly run into the 140 character limit and have to edit my Tweet down so it fits. Sometimes, I have to remove a word that conveys an important meaning or emotion, or I don’t send my Tweet at all. But when Iku Tweets in Japanese, he doesn’t have the same problem.

He finishes sharing his thought and still has room to spare. This is because in languages like Japanese, Korean, and Chinese you can convey about double the amount of information in one character as you can in many other languages, like English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French.

We want every person around the world to easily express themselves on Twitter, so we're doing something new: we're going to try out a longer limit, 280 characters, in languages impacted by cramming (which is all except Japanese, Chinese, and Korean).

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter’s defining attribute has long been its brevity: 140 characters in a post and no more.

That is now set to change. Twitter said on Tuesday that it would test extending the text limit of a post on its service to 280 characters. (In effect, that would double the length of the first two sentences of this paragraph; those sentences, for the record, add up to 140 characters.)

Twitter said the goal was to eliminate what it views as constraints that keep people from tweeting more frequently. One significant barrier, according to Twitter’s internal research, has been the stringent limit on character count.

“When people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people tweeting,” Twitter said in a blog post.

It is a significant moment for the 11-year-old Twitter, which has been trying to figure out how to change the social media service without alienating the people who have embraced its short format.

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter’s defining attribute has long been its brevity: 140 characters in a post and no more.

That is now set to change. Twitter said on Tuesday that it would test extending the text limit of a post on its service to 280 characters. (In effect, that would double the length of the first two sentences of this paragraph; those sentences, for the record, add up to 140 characters.)

Twitter said the goal was to eliminate what it views as constraints that keep people from tweeting more frequently. One significant barrier, according to Twitter’s internal research, has been the stringent limit on character count.

“When people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people tweeting,” Twitter said in a blog post.

It is a significant moment for the 11-year-old Twitter, which has been trying to figure out how to change the social media service without alienating the people who have embraced its short format.

Twitter reported $548 million in revenue over the last three months compared to the $511.9 million that was expected by Wall Street. They beat expectations by more than $36 million.

Even more impressively, for Twitter, the company added 9 million monthly active users over the quarter. That's 7 million more than expected. The site broke out its growth in the United States, emphasizing that it added 3 million users in its home country.

Beyond financials and user growth, Twitter reported that it's solving one of its major problems: abuse on the platform.

Twitter reported $548 million in revenue over the last three months compared to the $511.9 million that was expected by Wall Street. They beat expectations by more than $36 million.

Even more impressively, for Twitter, the company added 9 million monthly active users over the quarter. That's 7 million more than expected. The site broke out its growth in the United States, emphasizing that it added 3 million users in its home country.

Beyond financials and user growth, Twitter reported that it's solving one of its major problems: abuse on the platform.

Ahead of its Q1 earnings call this week, Twitter told BuzzFeed News that it plans to stream live video nonstop across its platform, making it easier for people to tune into what people are talking about.

There isn’t yet a set timeline for the rollout of its ‘ambient video’ programming; Twitter COO and CFO Anthony Noto told BuzzFeed News:

We will definitely have 24/7 (video) content on Twitter. Our goal is to be a dependable place so that when you want to see what’s happening, you think of going to Twitter.

Ahead of its Q1 earnings call this week, Twitter told BuzzFeed News that it plans to stream live video nonstop across its platform, making it easier for people to tune into what people are talking about.

There isn’t yet a set timeline for the rollout of its ‘ambient video’ programming; Twitter COO and CFO Anthony Noto told BuzzFeed News:

We will definitely have 24/7 (video) content on Twitter. Our goal is to be a dependable place so that when you want to see what’s happening, you think of going to Twitter.

A new social media network named Mastodon popped up a few months ago and is designed to deliver a decentralised, open-source experience, but its this unique structure that may make its members vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

Malwarebyte's researcher Zammis Clark blogged that the decentralised nature of the site's construction, which he said helps eliminate ads, a primary selling point for users, also leaves the social network open to hackers. The site is very different from Facebook, Twitter and other networks.Instead of being hosted by a corporate entity on its server system Mastodon members can set up their own server if they wish, called in “instance” by the Mastodon community, and then have people join Mastodon through that server. But here is where the problem arises.

Each person's “instance” receives a special domain name, for example mastodon.instance1, and anyone registering on that instance would receive a username like johnsmith.mastodon.instance1.

Where things go awry, Clark said, is the usernames can be replicated across all the "instances", so on mastodon.instance2 there could be a johnsmith.mastodon.instance2. This creates a situation where there are no verified accounts.

A new social media network named Mastodon popped up a few months ago and is designed to deliver a decentralised, open-source experience, but its this unique structure that may make its members vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

Malwarebyte's researcher Zammis Clark blogged that the decentralised nature of the site's construction, which he said helps eliminate ads, a primary selling point for users, also leaves the social network open to hackers. The site is very different from Facebook, Twitter and other networks.Instead of being hosted by a corporate entity on its server system Mastodon members can set up their own server if they wish, called in “instance” by the Mastodon community, and then have people join Mastodon through that server. But here is where the problem arises.

Each person's “instance” receives a special domain name, for example mastodon.instance1, and anyone registering on that instance would receive a username like johnsmith.mastodon.instance1.

Where things go awry, Clark said, is the usernames can be replicated across all the "instances", so on mastodon.instance2 there could be a johnsmith.mastodon.instance2. This creates a situation where there are no verified accounts.